Climate information for building designers: a graphical approach

ABSTRACT

Designing for the climate-responsive built environment is not a new concept. Local climate played a significant part in ancient city and building designs. In contrast, modern built environment professionals increasingly use climate-modifying technologies to nullify the local climatic constraints. The lack of climate considerations is often associated with limited understanding of local climate. Although detailed quantitative climate information is available for thermal performance evaluation tools, its qualitative interpretation is often too simplified to inform design decisions at early design stage. This paper addresses the issues of climate data analysis and presentation, and uses simple graphics to inform building designers about the local climate and encourages them to consider climate in their designs. This paper takes the case of Brisbane's climate, illustrates it through simple diagrams, and redefines seasonal variation into different periods based on comfort conditions. This paper also discusses application of the information in climate-responsive design.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate analysis
• environmental condition
• thermal comfort
• climate responsive design
• building designers
• building design strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Anir Kumar Upadhyay http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9415-4945